Obscured By Clouds
by girlyghoul
Summary: At age 8, Dean Winchester has already seen too much darkness to be able to look on the bright side of life. But maybe 3 year old Sammy can shed a little light on things. Wee!Chester fic. A little bit of angst mixed with unabashed schmoop. Set near Easter.


Authors Note: I promise I haven't abandoned Castiel's "Time Warp". But this little story grabbed hold of my mind and would leave me alone until I finished it. I'm trying something different here, so bear with me. This is the first story I've written that wasn't an all out comedy so I'm a little nervous about it. Please be kind. It was inspired by a wonderful picture by Tremaine aka kamidiox on deviantart. But more about that later. Now onto the story...

DISCLAIMER- I don't own these characters or the clouds they watch.

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OBSCURED BY CLOUDS

"Der's a Duck!"

"It's a dragon. See that cloud in front of him? He's breathing fire!"

"Der's a ice cweam cone!"

"It's a rotting brain. And look. A zombie's crawling up out of the grave to eat it."

"Der's a puppy wif floppy ears an' a curly tail!"

"Nah, that's a werewolf."

"Where a woof?"

"No. A werewolf. It's a man that turns into a monster when the moon is full."

"It a puppy, Dee!"

"Ok. Ok… A werepuppy!"

"Nuh uh! Jus a puppy!... An' dat one der, dat's da Easter Bunny! See him's basket wif eggs?"

"Uh huh. I see him… I see he's about to get eaten by the werepuppy!"

"Dee!"

Dean was lying on his back in the grass, one arm tucked behind his head, the other raised to the sky pointing out the Easter Bunny shaped cloud that was clearly about to meet its untimely demise in the gaping jaws of a werepuppy. Sammy was sitting beside him, but no longer looking up at the sky. He was now looking at Dean and making that _face_… a face Dean was seeing more and more often on his three year old brother. It always meant trouble.

"You always seeing motners!" Sammy huffed, "Stop seeing motners, Dee! You scawing me!"

The kid had his hands on his hips when he said it, which meant extra trouble. Dean didn't want to scare Sammy. But how could he help it if the world was full of scary things? He sighed and turned his eyes back to the blue sky and all the fluffy white clouds drifting overhead. He studied the shifting billowy shapes, looking for patterns and trying to make out something harmless and innocent to share with his brother. But all he could see were monsters.

* * *

They were spending Spring Break at Pastor Jim's and already it was yet another vacation that 8-year-old Dean would not be writing any essays about once school started up again.

Dad and Uncle Bobby had gone away the first night and had come back dragging a man between them towards the church's basement. The one place he and Sammy were never allowed in. Dean hadn't been able to get a good look at the man's face before Pastor Jim had hustled him back up the stairs, told him to lock his bedroom door and to watch out for his little brother. But he had seen the man's eyes… And they had been all the way black.

For the next couple days, he didn't see his Dad much at all. The Impala stayed parked in the driveway, but his Dad was still just gone. Pastor Jim kept telling the boys that their father was out running errands in Uncle Bobby's truck or working in the church's garden. But Dean had a feeling that he was really spending all his time in the basement with the black eyed man.

Uncle Bobby went out a lot, always coming back with weird looking bags and boxes of things that Dean never got to see. Sammy always asked if they were presents, but they never were.

And Bobby also brought in strange books. Big dusty books that smelled funny and left paper crumbs on Pastor Jim's big desk when they were opened. The grown ups told Dean and Sammy not to look at the books; that they were very, very old and that little hands shouldn't touch them. But when the grown ups were out gathering herbs in the garden and Sammy had fallen asleep on the couch watching _Thundercats_, Dean touched... and looked.

He couldn't read most of the words, but he didn't need to. There were pictures that let him know these books were about magic and monsters. The pictures were scarier than anything he had ever seen on TV- scarier even than anything his Dad had already told him about. And when he closed his eyes at night the pictures would float up in his mind. Hairy, ferocious beasts with mean faces and sharp teeth. Witches casting spells and bringing monsters to them. Men with robes and collars like Pastor Jim doing spells and sending monsters away. And people with black eyes like the man downstairs.

Dad would come around sometimes to look at the books, pick up the boxes Uncle Bobby had brought, pat the boys on their heads and then be gone again.

The Reverend kept the boys occupied and distracted in their father's absence. They spent one whole day coloring Easter Eggs for the church's Egg Hunt coming up that Saturday. It had been a lot of fun, even though Pastor Jim kept scolding Dean for painting pictures of bunnies and chicks with fangs and black eyes on his eggs. Sammy, of course, was praised even though all his eggs were decorated with nothing but scribbles and splotches. The brothers still had smudges of blue and pink and green covering their hands and under their nails from the dye.

Later that night, just before the boys' bedtime, their father came and actually stayed for a long while. He didn't say much, just sat in Pastor Jim's big arm chair holding them both on his lap. He smiled a little and pretended to listen as Sammy talked excitedly about the eggs and the coming hunt. But mostly he just stared forward. His beard was thicker than it had been when they first arrived and his knuckles were covered with dark purple and red under his nails. Dean didn't think he had been coloring eggs though.

After that, Dad was gone again. They didn't see him when they woke up the next morning for breakfast. But some other men came as they were helping Pastor Jim and Uncle Bobby with the dishes. These men didn't have black eyes as far as Dean could see, but many of them had scars and one was missing an arm. None of them said a word but as soon as they were all in the door, Uncle Bobby took off his dish washing gloves and led the men down to the basement.

"Such a beautiful day!" Pastor Jim had said suddenly, "You boys need to get out and enjoy it!"

Sammy had been beside himself, clapping his hands and skipping around the kitchen as the Reverend packed them up a picnic lunch and sent them out the door. Dean had been less enthused. For one thing, there was nothing to do outside. The church yard didn't have a playground or any trees to climb. For another, he knew the man was only trying to keep them away from what was happening down stairs. Sammy was too little to know about what their father really did. Dean knew about most of it, but there were still some things even he was too little to know. Something big was going down now. Something bigger than his Dad or even Uncle Bobby had ever faced before. And Dean was scared that maybe his Dad was too little for this one as well.

Pastor Jim wasn't shoving Sammy into his arms, telling him to take his brother outside as fast as he could and don't look back… But it felt a lot like that.

Dean knew better than to question the grown ups, though. And so, like a good soldier, he did his job and took his brother away from the things he was too little to know about and towards the only thing there was to do outside- which was to look at the clouds.

* * *

That was what Dean was still doing now. Watching the clouds and trying to see something nice and safe in the world around them. Even though they were real, Sammy was too little to know about monsters. He still got excited about ice cream, picnics and Easter Egg hunts and could still see ducks and puppies in the clouds. Dean supposed he deserved that. He didn't really remember but he thought it had probably been that way for him too when he was Sammy's age.

But that was when he still had Mommy with him and she could chase all the bad clouds and monsters away.

Dean knew he'd be busted for scaring Sammy with all his talk about zombies and werewolves... werepuppies, even. But part of him wanted Sammy to be scared. He thought that maybe if he had someone to be scared along with him, he would actually feel less scared himself.

He glanced over at Sammy and saw that the kid was still glaring at him with his hands on his hips and his lip thrust out, just waiting for his big brother to find some non-'motner' cloud in the sky.

"I see a Colt .45," he announced at last, pointing out the elongated cloud that looked sort of like a gun, "It's loaded with Silver Bullets and ready to blow the werepuppy away."

Sammy looked up at the cloud doubtfully and then back at Dean.

"It gonna hurt the puppy?" he said, frowning, "Dat not nice..."

"It'll save the Easter Bunny," Dean shrugged, "That's how you stop monsters. You get the right weapons and you blow them away."

"But Dee... Der's not really any motners are der...?"

Sammy's eyes were wide now as he stared over at Dean. The kid had a new look. A scared look that actually wasn't making Dean feel any less scared himself. He swallowed hard and looked back to the sky hoping there was a cloud shaped like a pony or a kitty cat he could quickly point out to his frightened brother. Instead he saw a dark cloud rolling towards them. A cloud that looked like a mean face with a gaping mouth... and black eyes.

"Is dat a motner, Dee?" Sammy asked pointing up to the cloud.

"It might be," Dean said quietly.

He heard Sammy whimper and scoot his butt closer towards him but Dean didn't exactly know how he was supposed to watch out for his little brother now. The face in the sky was moving closer, its mouth growing wider.

"Will da motner eat us?" Sammy whispered.

"M... Maybe," Dean said.

He hated the frightened squeak he heard in his own voice, but his heart was racing and it was all he could do not to scream. The black eyed cloud was hovering over them now, its mouth stretched open to swallow them whole, devour them. Maybe even move on to the church then and eat up everyone else Dean loved until there was nothing left. He squeezed his eyes shut tight as he heard Sammy gasp out loud. He kept his eyes shut as his brother kept on gasping.

Suddenly, he heard Sammy make a very different kind of noise.

"PWWWSSSH! PWWWSSSH! PWWWSSSH!!!" said Sammy.

Dean frowned, wondering if his brother was trying to whistle. He opened his eyes to see Sammy with big puffed up cheeks blowing his breath out towards the sky with all his might.

"What are you doing?" he asked the boy who was becoming quite red faced from his efforts.

"I blowing da motner away, Dee!" Sammy stated plainly, "Blow, Dee! Blow! We make him go away!"

Dean cocked an eyebrow at his brother, but then pursed his lips together and blew. Sammy nodded enthusiastically.

"Blow harder, Dee! We stop dat motner!"

Both brothers were lifting their lips to the sky, blowing as hard as they could. And then to Dean's wonderment, the dark cloud shifted and the black eyed face split in two letting the blue sky and sunshine through once again.

"We did it, Dee!" Sammy shouted, patting Dean's shoulder excitedly, "We blewed him away!"

"We sure did, Sammy," Dean said, smiling in spite of himself, "We sure did."

He propped himself up on his elbows and looked to the fluffy white clouds again.

"And look," he beamed, pointing up at the sky, "There's a duck!"

Sammy studied the cloud for a moment before turning to his brother and whispering conspiratorially.

"It a _wereduck_... Let's blow it away!"

Dean watched as Sammy got to his feet, his little fists clenched with determination as he lifted his face to the clouds and blew again with all his might. Dean tried to join his brother, but he was laughing too hard to really blow.

The world was still full of scary things, he knew. But at least now he saw there was still someone who could help him chase all the bad clouds and monsters away.

THE END

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**END NOTE:**

**This story was inspired by the awesome artwork "Clouds" by Tremaine which can be found at kamidiox . deviantart . com (but without the spaces) Seriously, check it out! Wee!Sammy's butt is beyond adorable! She did another picture based on a scene from my fic "Of Terminators and Training Wheels" which is also adorable and Shannondoll's "Sick Day" which is so sweet and chock full of brotherly goodness. She's got lots of great Supernatural fanart and other stuff that's just fantastic! Very talented!**

**The title of this story comes from an instrumental and album by Pink Floyd. Check that out as well! :-)**

**Reviews and feedback are greatly appreciated. And I really would love to hear what folks thought of this one as I usually stick to comedy and this one actually had a wee bit of angst in there. Kisses!**


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